


Almost Lifelike

by Whreflections



Series: Lifelike series [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Hurt Clint, Life Model Decoys, M/M, basically this is super painful, slight self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 18:30:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whreflections/pseuds/Whreflections
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If nothing you believed is true, what are you?  What does it mean to be 'real', anyway?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost Lifelike

**Author's Note:**

> ...I can never, ever leave anything alone. So this is from LMD!Phil's perspective. Clint's still very Not Ok. This one is definitely not less painful than the last. 
> 
> I'M SORRY SOMEDAY I WILL WRITE SOMETHING NICE

As soon he woke up in Tahiti, chest still bandaged and breath still coming heavy, he asked for Clint.  When he did, Fury actually touched him, a single grounding squeeze of his shoulder before he drew away. 

“You rest up, agent.  He’s alright, but the Avengers need Hawkeye right now more than you do, and they have to think you didn’t make it.  You understand.” 

And he did, for the first two weeks.  He wasn’t new to secrecy after all; lies had ceased to be news to him from the minute he joined the organization.  It was one thing, though, to lie to get the job done; this was something else.  The Battle of New York was over and done, and still every question about his husband’s whereabouts was met only with a differently phrased wall. 

_The team still needs him.  You must understand, Agent Coulson, your existence is classified.  If we brought him here, he couldn’t be trusted to maintain silence._

By the time he saw Fury again Phil was on his feet, freshly back to the States with the wound on his chest just beginning to scar.  After a dozen different answers, Coulson was pretty sure he’d mapped the lay of the land, enough to know he wouldn’t stand for it.  He wasn’t a goddamn rat.  If they thought there was an amount of redirection that could quiet him, they’d seriously miscalculated.  He faced Fury like an adversary.

“I was upfront with you about Barton, not from the beginning but early enough that it didn’t matter.  You allowed me to remain his handler, and I had your word that if we did our jobs accommodations would always be made.”  He took a step forward, let his voice drop a little softer.  “I need to see my husband.” 

“I said what I did when circumstances-“

“Cut the crap; tell me the truth.  You don’t intend to ever tell him I’m alive, do you?” 

Fury shook his head, brittle and stiff like he’d rather not have answered at all. 

“You told me-“

“In this job there are no absolutes, Coulson; you knew that when you joined.  As it’s turned out, there’s a lot Agent Barton can never know.  I hate to be the one to tell you, but that’s how it is.  He’s alright, and I can keep you updated, but you can never see him again.” 

The sharpest pain just then came not quite from the news itself but the thought of how Clint would’ve taken it, how he’d have cursed and demanded and reached back for his bow.  His rebellion was wild.  Phil’s was quiet, still and smooth until it suddenly wasn’t.  A crocodile strike, Clint had called it(and just then he hadn’t been far off, breath just a little constricted from the press of Coulson’s forearm against his throat). 

Everything burned, his eyes and throat and the place on his chest where his shirt rubbed scar tissue, and Phil couldn’t turn away fast enough.  He had to get out, had to think, had to _plan_ but Fury stopped him short, voice rising as if it helped. 

“This isn’t what I wanted, Coulson.  I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am for your loss.” 

Phil refused to turn around.  “Is that all, sir?” 

“It is.” 

\---------

Phil’d been making his plans for two months when he happened to catch a departmental update that rendered all those plans obsolete.  At 3:15 AM, November 12th, Agent Barton had been flown in to medical.  His condition was critical, but when the hell _wasn’t_ it under those circumstances?  If they were able to strap him down and bring him in, he could hardly be anything other than critical. 

There wasn’t much time to plan, and Coulson would’ve been the first to admit he was sloppy, but he got it done.  The agent just outside the door was the most problematic, but she was only a level five and it hadn’t been hard to convince her that he had a right to go in.  One of the perks of his notoriety in SHIELD was the fear of the younger agents; if it even occurred to her to question him he’d certainly at least have had some time with Clint first. 

Barton lay still as death, enough so that the bandages wrapped around his chest were almost as comforting as the beep and whir of machinery.  SHIELD was efficient; if he was gone, they wouldn’t waste the equipment patching him up.  Around the edge of the bandages Coulson could see the spatter of bruises from waist to collar, a pattern that brought forth in vivid action the words he’d read on that first report.  Crushed under rubble, they had said.  A victim of the wall he’d been using for cover.  They’d had to dig him out beneath brick and mortar. 

If it was anything like his last collision with building materials, he’d at least have a few cracked ribs to show for it. 

Coulson took the hand unfettered by the IV, slow and careful because he knew the way Clint came awake fighting if he was startled.  Slower still, he leaned in until he could kiss warm skin just next to a patch of gauze on Clint’s forehead. 

He finally stirred, mumbling though he didn’t wake. 

“It’s alright.  It’s alright, Clint.  I just wanted you to know I’m here.  You go ahead and sleep; when you wake up I expect to hear about Morocco.  I distinctly remember asking you to avoid medical for a year at least.”   

Clint’s fingers twitched around his, a light cling that made him hurt.  The nearest chair was on his right side, but he couldn’t let go.  He snagged it with his foot instead, dragging it awkwardly closer until he could twist around and sit, his hand still held as tight as Clint could manage. 

\---------

Calculating later, Phil determined that he’d managed to have about six hours of what passed for a return to normality.  Six hours and twenty minutes, give or take a little.  After that, Clint woke up. 

The way he jerked back like he’d been burned by Phil’s hand was a sharp slice, but it didn’t worry him overly much, not at first.  After all, he’d been dead, and Clint had seen a lot of terrifying things.  With all that Loki could do, all that Loki _had_ done to Clint himself…  Well, it was no wonder.  Anyone would’ve worried, anyone at all. 

Phil leaned as close as he dared, elbows on his knees.  “Listen, I know this is a lot to take in, but I can explain, I-“

“Jesus _Christ_.”  The venom in it stopped him, more effectively than the interruption alone ever could have.  Clint’s head tipped toward the ceiling, eyes closed and jaw clenched in a way that looked hard enough to crack it.  “You know what, fuck it.  I don’t give a damn what I said; Fury can deal with the consequences of his own actions.  God knows everyone else has to, and I’m sure as hell not doin’ this.” 

He spoke quick but level, smooth.  Like he’d talk to a mark, a man whose life expectancy Clint had already begun to measure in seconds. 

“Whatever they told you, they lied.  Phil Coulson died months ago on that helicarrier.  He died, and I buried him-“  There, for an instant, he was Clint again.  “-and that should’ve been the end of it, but SHIELD can never leave well enough alone.  So they made you, a construct based on technology they’d already begged off Stark.  You’re not real.  I don’t even know if you’re human and frankly I don’t care, because the man I love is dead and they had no goddamn right to make a fucking photocopy.” 

He stopped, breath a little wheezy like his chest had fully woken up and reminded him about the bricks he’d recently been under.  In the half quiet, Phil made a valiant attempt to process. 

Clint had to be wrong, didn’t he?  He had to be, because Phil remembered being stabbed, remembered the blood and the tightness in his chest and how he’d hoped that maybe before he closed his eyes, Clint might make wake up from Loki’s poison and make it there to see him.  His heart stopped on him there for a minute, but after that, he-

After that there was Tahiti.  Everything in between was radio silence, and oh _God_ , how had he never noticed it before?  Unconscious they’d said, and since he’d woken with so much pain in his chest he’d never questioned it.  He wouldn’t have now either, not with his head so full of a life thoroughly lived and his arms marked with familiar scars, but Clint still wouldn’t look at him, and he had enough memory of Stark to understand that everything he’d just been told was indeed a possibility.  In that case, did it count as memory at all?  _Was_ it memory if everything you knew was implanted? 

He felt lightheaded, and he gripped the bedrail.  Clint still wouldn’t open his eyes. 

“Clint,-“

“I’m sure this is all very confusing and full of existential crisis for you, but if you actually give a damn, can you go?  Please.”    

\--------

Back at his apartment Coulson stripped down, ticked off his scars and the memories he could dredge up of each.  The work was thorough; so far as his memory held, none were missing.  The knife he took to the inside of his arm yielded a tiny red line, though once it was done he knew he couldn’t hold that up as conclusive evidence of humanity.  Lots of things were red; it might not even be blood at all.  How the hell _did_ the Life Model Decoys work anyway?  Beyond Tony’s enthusiasm for the project, he remembered little.  He’d always been more soldier than scientist, ever since he was little. 

Or at least, that was what he remembered. 

Clint’s words echoed in his head, a deafening clamor. 

 _You’re not real._  

Coulson gasped, gripped the edge of the sink like a sudden weight pressed him toward it.  The light was glaring to his eyes and he let go only long enough to slap the switch down. 

If he wasn’t real, why the hell could he remember his life in such vibrant detail?  If he wasn’t the man he’d been so sure he was, why had Clint’s body known his?  Unconsciously it had; there was no denying it.    With only touch to go on Clint’s fingers had sought his, had held on.  If it was true that the body held sense memory, how could it ever be fooled by an imposter, however cleverly he might have been created?  If they had never made love, why had the ghost of Clint’s grip felt so familiar?

Beyond the darkness and outside his bedroom door, Coulson heard footsteps on the hardwood.  He knew Maria’s boots, was as sure of the sound of them there as he would have been on metal decks.  When she spoke through the closed door, he was ready. 

“I know the odds that you want to talk are really slim, but I need to know you’re breathing in there, Coulson.” 

A slightly hysterical part of him ached to point out that in light of recent information, her sentence wasn’t exactly accurate. 

He swallowed, realized only then how close he was to throwing up in the sink. 

“You can tell Fury not to worry.  There’s no need to start the project over.”  Not yet, though it _was_ an interesting thought.  Would they replace him indefinitely?  Would there always be a Phil Coulson at SHIELD now? 

“I’m…supposed to tell you that we’ll provide counseling.  We’ll provide whatever you need.”

Just then, he needed only for her to go.  A few minutes of silence later, and she murmured her goodbye close to the doorjamb. 

“You’re still Coulson to me, sir.  In my opinion, the project works.” 

He made it roughly five minutes after her boots retreated before he gave up controlling the rebellion of his stomach.  


End file.
